Flamingos, Flamingos

Pink Water

May 22nd, 2010

Alice and I are standing on the dikes of a huge salt works bordering Mexico's Reserva de la Biospera Ria Lagartos. We are looking at water that is incredibly salty and absolutely pink colored from small brine shrimp and other tiny carotene loaded organisms. Our guide, Roman Fernandez, scoops a handful to show us the pink orange squiggles thrashing about in the water. This is the food that makes the flamingos pink!

Fossil evidence shows us that 56 to 34 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch, the dawn of mammals, flamingos were wading about. Flamingos are gregarious birds in the genus Phoenicopterus and family Phoenicopteridae. Worldwide there are six different species. One of these, the American Flamingo, lives in the Caribbean with the greatest numbers in the Ria Lagartos Reserve area. And, when you see the huge population of wild flamingos there - sometimes there are as many as 40,000 in the reserve - they appear little changed from their early appearance on this earth. Gawky with their upside down looking bill yet incredibly graceful they glide across the vast flats of the reserve.

We had driven from Merida to Rio Lagartos on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the northern part of the the Yucatan. Once there we hired a guide to take us on on a birding adventure to view some of the hundreds of different species of birds that live or migrate through this reserve. We were not disappointed. Our guide, Roman, was a gifted naturalist well versed in the life histories and habits of the creatures we saw -birds and others. He filled us with such information as the size of the flamingos - 2.5 kilos for females, 5.5 kilos for males, that they may naturally live for 20 years, that they have few if any predators, that they lay and incaubate one egg per year, that they are white or green when young, and that they mate for life.


We had gone to Rio Lagartos , a fishing village of 3,000 inhabitants, to see the flamingos, but they were only part of the great show we experienced. Among the birds we saw in that afternoon were:

Thousands of Flamingos / Flamenco Comun
Great Blue Heron / La Gran Garza de Azule o Garzon Cenizo
Great Egret / Garzon Blanco

Boat-billed Heron

Boat-billed Heron / Garza Cucharon
Snowy Egret / Garzita Nivea

Great Black-hawk

Great Black-hawk / Aguililla Negra
Osprey / Gavilan Pescador

Feeding Wood Stork

Wood Stork / Ciguena
Roseate Spoonbill /Espatula
White Ibis / Ibis Blanco
Magnificent Frigate Bird / Fragata

Brown and White Pelicans

Brown Pelican / Alcatraz Pardo
White Pelican / Alcatraz Blanco
Neotropic Cormorant / Corvejon
Anhinga / Huizote
Ruddy Ground Dove / Tortilita Rojiza
Scaled Pigeon / Paloma Escamosa
Yucatan Parrot / Loro Yucateco

And many other birds.

Additionally we saw:

BIG Croc

Crocodiles / Cocodrilos We saw several. One was huge and we saw it "up close"!! Roman said it was nesting. I later read that nesting crocodiles are most dangerous!

Purple Rain

This time of year in Guanajuato the jacaranda trees are blooming and their purple/blue blossoms are raining on the city.

Maybe Prince has been to Guanajuato.

Kiddie Banda de Rock

I was walking along Alonso near Jardin Union on a beautiful spring morning at the end of March, 2010 when I heard a Keith Richard's electric guitar blues riff tumble out the door of an old monastary now owned by the city of Guanajuato. Naturally, I couldn't resist stopping to find out just who, what and why. It turned out that a four man rock band was tuning up there for a free rock concert to be played that afternoon in the plazuela in front of the old church, San Roque.


I liked the bluesy sound which I don't hear much of here in Mexico - so, that afternoon I showed up at the improbable start time of 4:00PM at San Roque for the concert. Boy, was I surprised!


This was a kiddie rock concert! Featured songs were about how much fun it is to jump and how we should mind our parents. But that was just for starters. I found myself sitting among lots of small kids with their parents enjoying songs delivered at a level of Spanish aimed straight for the kids - and me.


The music was really well done and fun. And there was a cast of characters which included clowns, ten-foot stilt dancers, puppets, ponies and skeletons - death having its own special "continuing" twist here in Mexico, i.e. suitable for children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There have been two full moons since we arrived in Guanajuato, Mexico. We’ve been here now for just over seven weeks.
The most notable physical things about this beautiful place are the altitude, around seven thousand feet at the casita where we are living, and the incredible dryness of the air, - el tiempo está muy seco. Neither Alice nor I have been able to get used to either of these conditions. We “run out of breath” –oxygen- frequently and we go to sleep early. At night I am having vivid fantastical Mexican dreams. The dryness is very tough on our skin and noses. We are both having lots of nose bleeding.
So there, the bad stuff is out of the way.
This city, Guanajuato, is in many ways similar to Raleigh, North Carolina, our home for many years. The population is largely well educated and by Mexican standards middle class. The local economy is well spread out. The city of Guanajuato is the capital of the State of Guanajuato and it is the center of state government. The prestigious University of Guanajuato is smack in the middle of the city with a law school, architecture school, mining school, language schools, symphony orchestra, etc. etc. There are many other schools here. There are private schools for all levels of education, language schools and trade schools with very specific missions, for example, metal work.
Because of its beauty, its monuments, and it importance in Mexican history; Guanajuato was declared a "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO (Patrimonia de la Humanidad) in 1988. There are some structures and buildings in this city that were built in the 1500’s and 1600’s. And, it is fairly common to see buildings constructed in the 1700’s.
There are a number of large still productive gold and silver mines here. Some of these have been producing at high levels since the 1500’s. In fact, mines in this city, beginning with the Rayas and the Mellado mines which opened in 1558, literally carried the largest share of Spain’s enormous financial burden during its period of greatest power and influence.






An important point of Mexican history is that this city is considered to be “the cradle” of the First Mexican Revolution, the break away from Spain. Large numbers of Mexican tourists come here for that reason. A large statue of El Pípila, the Indian miner who was among those who first openly challenged Spain’s authority, stands overlooking the city. Juan José de los Reyes Martínez was Pípila’s real name. Pípila, as the story goes, was a young man born with defects both mental and physical. His physical deformities caused him to walk in a fashion not unlike the hen turkey and he was an object of ridicule. The nickname given to him, Pípila, is the Spanish/Mexican word for a hen turkey. Pípila was immortalized by his act of bravery when he crawled up to the wooden the doors of the Alhondiga, a fortress like granary. The Spanish were “holed up” there. Pípila braved the Spanish musket fire repelling it using a large flat stone strapped on his back. Then, he smeared tar on the wooden door and set the door afire. The door burned allowing the rebellious Mexicans to enter the building and kill the Spanish. Horrible acts of retribution by the Spanish followed, but the revolution was “on”.
The city is and has been an important art center. Great artists were born here and worked here including Diego Rivera and Chavez Morado. Among the many museums here are museums celebrating the works of both of these twentieth century artists who interpreted much of Mexico’s history in their art.
The city is FULL of beautiful public parks and they are loved and used. You would hardly know that television set exists here. Every night in the parks individual guitar player/singers, mariachi groups, renaissance lute groups, all kinds of bands and more are filling the nights with music. People are strolling around the Jardin Union listening to competing music, eating great food and kissing. Yes, kissing. Guanajuato is the city of the kiss, el beso. Aside from being a frequent pastime for people, there is a street named for kissing, Callejon del Beso (the little street or alley of the kiss). This little callejon is so narrow that you are kissing if you pass someone there. And, Besame Mucho is popular with lots of singers.
Guanajuato has a wonderful Symphony Orchestra. We were surprised when we went to hear their first concert of the season which included Leonard Bernstein’s Candide Overture, a Mendelssohn violin set with virtuoso violinist, Suliman Takalli, and a portion of Mendelssohn’s 5th Symphony, the Reform, which was written to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Lutheran church and reflects sounds of Martin Luther’s A Mighty Fortress. The guest conductor, Albert Moehring, was from the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina.

Drinking is also popular. There are all kinds of great tequilas available, good wine, beer, and local mescals of exotic “curados”.
There are most unusual and delicious fruit drinks, waters (aguas) and juices (jugos) sold on the streets and in restaurants. We have tried and have delighted in such unusual and, to me, unlikely choices as cumber (pepino) juice or mango/strawberry.

Introduction to the Casa Museo Gene Byron

Gathering in the Jardin after the Concert

Today Alice and I went to a concert in Marfil, a suburb of Guanajuanto. We met a couple, John and Sue Cocoran, at Escuela Mexicana, and they told us about this concert to be held at Casa Museo Gene Byron.
The Concert Program read as follows: Concierto de violin, piano y contrabajo

Three young men performed. The piano player was very young – we heard only fifteen years old. He carried the concert playing in most of the segments sometimes by himself, a couple of times with the violinist and also with the contrabajo player. I thought that the segments with the contrabajo player were the most interesting. It turned out that the contrabajo player performs with the University of Guanajuato Orchestra. The music was wonderful.

The setting was more than wonderful. The concert was held in an old hacienda that had been converted into a museum/performance center. The grounds were lavishly planted. Flowers were blooming everywhere and were complimented by lush greenery clinging to the walled gardens.

An old man named Virgilio and his wife met us at the entrance and introduced themselves and welcomed us. It turns out that Virgilio was once married to Gene Byron

A Mexican Adventure

On January 28th, 2009 Alice and I left Morehead City, North Carolina and began a new adventure. We headed to Mexico. We finally took a long hoped for leap into the world of the Spanish language. We enrolled in a language school in the old colonial silver city and provincial capital of Guanajuato. Our faithful dog, Baby, accompanied us, and he will become a perro.

We left the USA on Saturday, January 31, 2009. We missed our flight from Raleigh because the plane we were scheduled to take to Atlanta wasn't big enough to carry Baby's kennel. We thought we had thoroughly covered that with Delta long before we left Morehead City, but they got us anyhow. Delta was very nice about it and delaying our flight was certainly best for the Babe as they would have loaded the kennel sideways to get it in the plane. And, Baby would have been traumatized. Delta put us in a nearby hotel until the next flight with a large enough cargo hold. They also gave us food vouchers, and $200 in travel vouchers for a future travel date. We were able to contact Victor Vásquez, the man whose business was to drive us from Mexico City to Guanajuato, via email on our new laptop.

The next flight went smoothly except that we arrived in Mexico City at 10:00PM Mexico City time.
We cleared customs with the kind help of a man named Israel Cundin who we met on the plane. Israel has a couple of Mexican restaurants in the Louisville KY area. He was to be visiting family in Mexico and attending a five month cooking school.

A man named Tomás Morín was at the customs entrance with a sign with our names on it when we finally cleared around 10:30 CST. Tomás drove us to Guanajuato and we arrived around 4:30AM. By 5:30 we had found our place to stay in GTO. Baby, Alice and I were all exhausted and we slept until afternoon.

The woman in whose home we are staying is named Martha Abascal. She is very nice and doesn't pronounce the H in her name. Our place is a studio apartment consisting of one big room, a kitchenette, a bathroom and a balcony. It sits literally on top of Martha's house and from the balcony there is a great view of the city. The mountain we live on is very steep. The walk down to school is fairly easy and it takes about fifteen minutes. It is damn near impossible to walk back up although we have a couple of times. We can get a cab up for 25-30 pesos, about $2US.

The school is very lively and we are both overwhelmed (abrumador). We are each taking three, one hour classes per day. So far, we love it!

A Close Encounter with Ospreys

A group of ten or so "bird banders" had been banding terns on Wainwright Island in late summer of 2008. This particular trip was a “clean up" with the goal of banding stragglers and birds missed on two excursions to Wainwright earlier in the summer. This trip also featured something a little unusual. A Brandt was mixed in with the terns.

Brandt with Terns

The Brandt was a delight to encounter. He/she was a goofy bird that couldn't fly and was taking refuge with the terns. This might have been the highlights of the day, but after we arrived back at the landing on Cedar Island and stowed all of banding gear away most of our crowd quickly dispersed. It was then that John Weske asked to the two of us who remained if we were up for a little different adventure. He suggested that we go back out into the sound to a channel marker where we had observed an Osprey nest with babies and try to band them. John, Rachel Salmon, and I jumped back on the boat and headed out to the nest.

I have always admired ospreys but I had never really looked at one close up. I was a little apprehensive as I maneuvered the boat into the tide flow and John swung onto the marker ladder with a nimble jump from the bow. He was quickly onto the nesting platform. Mom and Dad Osprey were suddenly on the scene screaming and darting through the air toward John.

Ospreys present a banding problem that is different from the problems of banding pelicans and terns as the Osprey babies are asynchronously born. Of a typical clutch of three eggs, they may have been laid -first egg till the last – several days to perhaps even a week or more apart. And, the hatching is spaced out roughly the same, rather than a clutch hatching at (more or less) the same time - as is more usual among birds. So, when we looked into this particular Osprey nest there were three babies. One - the one in the picture below - was closing in on time to fledge. The other two were much smaller, the smallest just a puffball.

Osprey Baby

John grabbed the big chick first and banded it. He wanted to get that bird out of the nest so he could gently handle the little birds as he banded them. I asked John as he handed the big bird down to me after banding it if it would bite. He, of course, told me no. - Note my right index finger where the bird immediately bit me, and notice the size of this beautiful creature's feet with new band.

Rachel Salmon with the biggest Osprey baby

I first become aware of this concept of asynchronous hatching when I read Marie Winn's book Red-Tails in Love? But having this eye to eye encounter made me think about this concept even more. What was the reason for it? What was Mother Nature up to?

A little research led me to find that this asynchronous hatching is seen in various types of raptors, and it is an adaptation to the kind of often wildly fluctuating food supply found in coastal Carolina's rivers, sounds and oceans. During seasons or times of seasons when food is in short supply, the later hatched young will probably starve as the earlier hatched young, being larger and stronger, deprive them of food (siblicide - they push their weaker brothers or sisters out of the nest) And, the size of the brood is reduced to a level in balance with the available food supply. In years of plenty all the young may be able to survive.